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With Wii U all but dead now: What had the better life, The Dreamcast or Wii U?
- Thread starter Trojita
- Start date
Jawmuncher
Member
Dreamcast had way better variety, not to mention Dino crisis. WiiU had some good exclusives but I'd take the Dreamcast over it any day.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
Man, rereading this thread reminds me how awesome the Dreamcast was. Quality and quantity. Wii U had quality but if you finish a title and only like that certain genre, you're gonna be left hungry. Dreamcast had several titles in many genres and covered all the genres very well.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
I think judging Dreamcast games by how they hold up to 2016 graphics, dual analogs, online integration and so on is perhaps being about as absurd as any comparison topic could get.
They're all products of their time and have to be assessed as such. Their "life" was in the period they released and ended production. The Dreamcast had much more of a healthy life game-wise than the absolutely beyond starved Wii U.
Oof...noice
Theanine3D
Member
Dreamcast, easily. Lots of new, creative, risky IPs and a huge amount of genre variety. And PSO was quite possibly the most innovative game of that era.
In contrast, 1st party genre variety on Wii U was abysmal. By far my biggest disappointment with the console. I bought the first Nintendo HD console expecting experiences only made possible by this more relatively powerful hardware - I don't consider 2D platformers to fall in that category (I prefer playing those on handhelds). Only 3 games worth playing online in the entire console's life, one of which I personally didn't enjoy. A mediocre Star Fox, and no Metroid. A Zelda that got delayed repeatedly and ended up releasing on the successor console anyway. But hey, at least Mario 3D World had a nice soundtrack...
In contrast, 1st party genre variety on Wii U was abysmal. By far my biggest disappointment with the console. I bought the first Nintendo HD console expecting experiences only made possible by this more relatively powerful hardware - I don't consider 2D platformers to fall in that category (I prefer playing those on handhelds). Only 3 games worth playing online in the entire console's life, one of which I personally didn't enjoy. A mediocre Star Fox, and no Metroid. A Zelda that got delayed repeatedly and ended up releasing on the successor console anyway. But hey, at least Mario 3D World had a nice soundtrack...
Well, he included SFA3 which looked and ran better on Saturn. An argument could be made for KOF98 too and that goes back two gens to NeoGeo. And if you bring arcade games into it VF3tb and Sega Rally 2 were big downgrades on Dreamcast.
I'll have to respectfully disagree.
Don't get me wrong, I like HOTD2 as much as the next guy but it lasts 30 minutes. Sonic Adventure was amazing at the time but it's pretty jank and hasn't held up at all, even compared to it's peers like MGS or OOT. If these are the sorts of games topping your list then it's running circles around nothing.
Boy. This is a pretty close call for me.
DC certainly has the more robust library, but the polish on some Wii U titles put the few of them on their own league in terms of quality.
I'll probably play timeless titles on my Wii U more often than my favorite titles on the Dreamcast going forward, but I'll continue to discover hidden gems on the DC going forward whereas the library on the Wii U is so finite. I already know all of the best games on the system.
I'm going with the DC on this by a hair.
DC certainly has the more robust library, but the polish on some Wii U titles put the few of them on their own league in terms of quality.
I'll probably play timeless titles on my Wii U more often than my favorite titles on the Dreamcast going forward, but I'll continue to discover hidden gems on the DC going forward whereas the library on the Wii U is so finite. I already know all of the best games on the system.
I'm going with the DC on this by a hair.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
Wii U. A lot of its exclusives are GOAT material, it has an amazing controller and is backwards compatible with the Wii.
Dreamcast is cool but a lot of the games have aged poorly, plus the controller is dogshit and the lasers go out all the time.
Dreamcast is cool but a lot of the games have aged poorly, plus the controller is dogshit and the lasers go out all the time.
socksfelloff
Member
Dreamcast for me.
When dreamcast launched it blew everything else of the water by a HUGE margin.
Sega was on their A game.
The best arcade ports we've ever seen
Great titles from a variety of developers
Does homebrew count?
The wiiu has a ton of great titles but they are all from Nintendo and any forced game pad or motion controls ruins a game for me.
The game pad doesn't use Bluetooth.
The vmu batteries were non rechargeable and died in minutes.
When dreamcast launched it blew everything else of the water by a HUGE margin.
Sega was on their A game.
The best arcade ports we've ever seen
Great titles from a variety of developers
Does homebrew count?
The wiiu has a ton of great titles but they are all from Nintendo and any forced game pad or motion controls ruins a game for me.
The game pad doesn't use Bluetooth.
The vmu batteries were non rechargeable and died in minutes.
Soapbox Killer
Grand Nagus
I love me some Dreamcast but Wii U had the best 8th Gen line up till about 8 months ago. Let's not forget all the indies that rock on the Wii U that make up for the lack of arcade games. Plus Zelda Wii U might come out before 2020 so it yeah.
It's (very) close but Wii U.
It's (very) close but Wii U.
thecouncil
Banned
Wii U is everything wrong with the industry. It's a mess of a console supplied with only awful HD remakes of games for children. It's as if someone took a shit in my living room and plugged it into my TV with an HDMI cable.
Dreamcast was a ray of light in the darkness of gaming that, unsurprisingly, still holds up today. It had everything: games, a controller,... etc. It is what every console since has strived to be, outside of the "miserable failure" part.
Dreamcast was a ray of light in the darkness of gaming that, unsurprisingly, still holds up today. It had everything: games, a controller,... etc. It is what every console since has strived to be, outside of the "miserable failure" part.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
Dreamcast. SEGA went all out with the Dreamcast till their last creative breath. That SEGA doesn't exist anymore.
The PS2 is what every console strived to be. The Dreamcast was never destined to succeed past the 2000s with it's technology that was already dated compared to the PS2. Nevermind that the machine was still running CD-ROM tech while the industry was making the switch to DVD. SEGA would have been forced to release another console if they had the chance.
shiftplusone
Member
I don't like Shenmue and I know that the sonic adventure games are fucking terrible and yet i'd still put the dreamcast ahead of the wii u.
I bought the wii u for bayonetta 2, which is an incredible game and I'm glad I did it, but there are less than 5 other games that I care about and if I lost access to my Wii U today I dont feel like I'd be losing anything.
Waste
I bought the wii u for bayonetta 2, which is an incredible game and I'm glad I did it, but there are less than 5 other games that I care about and if I lost access to my Wii U today I dont feel like I'd be losing anything.
Waste
Looking at them in their respective times, the Dreamcast by a long shot and it's not even close (IMO, subjective of course), and I love Nintendo games, and also had a Dreamcast at launch.
The DC (at least in the West), had around 2 jam packed awesome years. So many memorable games, and unlike a lot of the "safe" Wii U big titles, Sega really branched out with new genres and experimenting. I'd also say it was the largest graphical leap between gens. Going from PS1 to Soul Calibur...
The DC (at least in the West), had around 2 jam packed awesome years. So many memorable games, and unlike a lot of the "safe" Wii U big titles, Sega really branched out with new genres and experimenting. I'd also say it was the largest graphical leap between gens. Going from PS1 to Soul Calibur...
SpikedGunner
Member
I'll say Dreamcast, though I will say that at least Wii U had Bayo 2 for me.
generic_username
I switched to an alt account to ditch my embarrassing tag so I could be an embarrassing Naughty Dog fanboy in peace. Ask me anything!
Fixed.
The only thing I never liked about the Dreamcast controller was the terrible D-pad. The analog stick was pretty good though and the triggers were great.
Overall though it did feel like a step back from the Nights controller on Saturn, with it's only real improvement being the VMU. Weird move at the time.
JamesJoyce1882
Member
The Wii U by far. Many of the best games of the current/last generation. Dreamcast may have been very innovative, but from an outside perspective, very few outstanding games. I predict in 10 years, when both consoles will feel ancient, people will play Wii U games a lot more than dreamcast games.
TwEE-N-Toast
Banned
Wii U, but that's not saying much.
Unlike the Wii U, DC will always be looked at as a good system that was cut out of its prime regardless of having pretty decent sales.
Wii U will always be looked at as a flop that had no third party games(or any worthy of note,)a controller interface that was garbage and wasted completely as the core concept of the unit, priced at a worse premium than the other consoles of the time and to boot, and was the worst selling console Nintendo had up until that point.
None of these things are things people who hate nintendo would say, but actual fact that people have to take with the good of Nintendo's first party offerings.
WiiU is better to people who love Nintendo games, the Dreamcast is better to people who love games in general.
As I said in a previous thread
As I said in a previous thread
timetokill
Banned
As much as I LOVED the Dreamcast, the Wii U easily has the better library. Dreamcast had a lot of crazy experimental stuff but a lot of it FELT experimental, even at release. Wii U had some experimental stuff too (Splatoon especially) that came out polished and nearly perfect. For games that weren't -- see Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, NSMBU + NSLU, Bayonetta 2, etc.... we're talking about the absolute pinnacle of their respective genres.
Also I'll never forgive Sega for not releasing Shenmue 2 on DC in the US. It made my last memories of Dreamcast very bitter.
Also I'll never forgive Sega for not releasing Shenmue 2 on DC in the US. It made my last memories of Dreamcast very bitter.
The only thing special about TW101 is it's the only Platinum game I couldn't enjoy.
I like my character action sans gimmicks. Bayonetta 2 is so much of a better game that I forgot TW101 even exists. It serves no purpose for me.
Kabuki Quantum Lover
Member
The Dreamcast.
DeuceGamer
Member
I think Dreamcast is more fondly remembered during it's actual lifespan but I think Wii U will be more fondly remembered in the future as the games are revisited and some of Wii U's issues are forgotten by the majority of gamers.
Of course we are generalizing. We are discussing an entire genre so there is obviously going to be some generalizations.
I disagree it's just a personally held opinion that yearly sports titles are sought after when looking back at a console. Sure, there are probably some who care about Madden on retro consoles, but the vast majority of retro gamers and collectors don't care about yearly sports titles, regardless of their quality.
Sure, they are important to a consoles sales, but when looking back I just disagree that collectors and the majority of retro gamers care much in regards to yearly Sports titles.
Some may remember it as being underpowered, but it will largely be judged on it's games as that's the single most important factor. Sure, some look back at Gamecube and remember it was behind the times with no DVD, very little online play, etc... but it's remembered fondly because of the games.
They won't care that it was underpowered for it's time in 10 years. All consoles from that generation will be underpowered. They won't care about the droughts, cause they will have access to the entire library. What they will care about, is the games and the Wii U has some good games.
No denying it lacked sports titles. I just don't think that's a concern for the average gamer who is interested in retro games and the type of gamer who will be judging retro consoles at some point in the distant future.
Of course we are generalizing. We are discussing an entire genre so there is obviously going to be some generalizations.
I disagree it's just a personally held opinion that yearly sports titles are sought after when looking back at a console. Sure, there are probably some who care about Madden on retro consoles, but the vast majority of retro gamers and collectors don't care about yearly sports titles, regardless of their quality.
Sure, they are important to a consoles sales, but when looking back I just disagree that collectors and the majority of retro gamers care much in regards to yearly Sports titles.
Some may remember it as being underpowered, but it will largely be judged on it's games as that's the single most important factor. Sure, some look back at Gamecube and remember it was behind the times with no DVD, very little online play, etc... but it's remembered fondly because of the games.
They won't care that it was underpowered for it's time in 10 years. All consoles from that generation will be underpowered. They won't care about the droughts, cause they will have access to the entire library. What they will care about, is the games and the Wii U has some good games.
No denying it lacked sports titles. I just don't think that's a concern for the average gamer who is interested in retro games and the type of gamer who will be judging retro consoles at some point in the distant future.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
The problem with remembering Wii U games is that Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, and Mario Kart 8 are the only games that will be remembered fondly cuz they headlined the console to the mainstream. The rest will be a blur even among Nintendo's own games.
gigantor21
Member
The Dreamcast, easily. From day 1 it had FAR more games that appealed to me, a much better price, and was forward thinking and prescient in online features rather than backwards. If I wanted a WiiU even half as much Id have one already.
potatohead
Member
I love my WiiU but honestly the only answer here is DC.
I mostly agree ... but "time heals all wounds". I wouldn't underestimate gamers' nostalgia. even non nintendo fans
GameCube for example got trashed on forums for years. Wasn't years later until it found its niche... Dreamcast was sort of different but it took about a decade to have a dedicated following outside of Sega diehards.
AuthenticM
Member
The WiiU had better games.
Personally I'd say that other manufacturers and publishers losing interest in making games suitable for children to focus on violent games suitable only for adults is a bigger issue for an entertainment industry as a whole, and quite shortsighted.
But yes, losing the variety that comes with third party support is a problem. I just don't think Zelda is either awful or particularly aimed at kids as opposed to being suitable for all ages. Plenty of adults play them.
Brainfreeze
Member
I'm not sure what this even means. People who like Nintendo games don't like other games?
I also think that's a huge overstatement to say the Dreamcast is beloved by "everyone." I think most people don't give a shit about the Dreamcast and vastly preferred their playstation or whatever.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Based on personal interest, Dreamcast by a long shot